15 



EPOCHAS OF NATURE, 



ACCORDING TO THE 



AZTECK MYTHOLOGY 



PLATE XXVI. 



The most prominent feature among- the analo- 

 gies observed in the monuments, the manners, 

 and traditions of the people of Asia and Ameri- 

 ca, is that which the Mexican mythology exhi- 

 bits in the cosmogonical fiction of the periodical 

 destructions and regenerations of the world. 

 This fiction, which connects the return of the 

 great cycles with the idea of the renewal of mat- 

 ter, deemed indestructible; and which attri- 

 butes to space what seems to belong only to time*, 

 goes back to the highest antiquity. The sacred 

 books of the Hindoos, especially the Bhagavata 

 Poarana, speak of the four ages, and of the pra- 

 layas, or cataclysms, which at different epochas 



* flerman, Mvlhologie tier Griechen, Tli. 2, p. 332. 



